96 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
about six, frequently commences to produce female 
flowers, and eventually becomes wholly female. 
The male trees usually appear to have more erect 
branches and smaller leaves than the females, but I am 
by no means sure that this is always the case. They' 
are often conspicuously less leafy and shabbier looking 
on native plantations, but this is attributed to the 
natives not wasting manure on male trees. The flowers 
are produced on small cymes from the branches, each 
cyme a little above a leaf. They have a short, 
woody stalk about ^ in. long, and several branches, each 
bearing a number of flowers. The flowers hang down 
on short green pedicels, and are bell-shaped, with three 
short triangular lobes, all light yellow and aromatic 
flavoured. They are more globose and smaller than the 
female flowers. The walls of the perianth are rather 
thick, and there is usually some honey inside at the 
bottom. 
The androecium, or mass of stamens in the centre, 
consists of a white cylinder terminated by a cone of 
about twelve narrow linear anthers closely joined 
together, and reaching to the mouth of the tube of the 
perianth. 
The female flowers are borne in similar positions 
to the males, but they are either solitary on simple 
curved pedicels, or there are three together, but seldom 
more. They are rather larger than the males and more 
oval in outline, dilated at the base and narrowed at the 
tip below the three spreading lobes, rather more fleshy 
than the males, light yellow and shining, ^ in. long. 
Inside the tube, in place of the staminal column is 
the ovary, a green conic body ending in a pair of erect, 
parallel, triangular white stigmas, which nearly fill up 
the mouth of the tube. Like the males they contain a 
quantity of nectar at the base of the tube, and are fleshy 
and aromatic to the taste, having the same flavour as the 
nutmeg. I have occasionally met with fasciated flowers, 
two being joined together by their sides. 
The fruit when ripe is one of the most beautiful in 
